This Is Your Life (19 page)

Nominee.

When I finally prised the accompanying letter out of Betty's jaws, it informed me that I had been nominated for the category of Best New Stand-up. I shouted such a triumphant ‘Yes!' that Betty jumped clear off the ground in excitement. I think she imagined I was so happy because of the excellent job she'd made of opening the envelope. I re-read the letter and then rang Nancy to tell her the incredible news.

‘I can't believe it – me, nominated for Best Stand-up. It's just ridiculous!'

‘Why's it ridiculous?'

‘Well, er, because I'm not. Erm, probably.'

I had wanted her to be happy for me, but she was curiously reserved about it.

‘So when are you moving to Hollywood then?' she said.

‘I've already bought a place.'

‘Really?' she said in amazement.

‘Nancy! How can you be taken in by your own joke?'

Famous people had this line they always trotted out when they were interviewed on telly. ‘I've been very lucky,' they would humbly admit, forcing the interviewer to contradict them and assert that their rare talent and hard work were much greater factors in their enormous success. I'd always thought that the ‘I've been very lucky' mantra was fairly transparent false modesty, but now I began to realize what a huge part luck must really play. A screen goddess could never guarantee her next film would not be a turkey; a great band might emerge only if their type of music happened to come into fashion. Often the people who made it were no more talented than the next contender. Like myself they happened to be in the right place at the right time. Everyone in society
is spinning around like a load of lottery balls in the drum; it's luck who ends up rolling out and becoming someone special. And now it seemed that fate or some other more powerful force beyond my understanding was about to give my phantom career another big leg-up.

Around this time I read a story in the newspaper about the unmasking of a bogus doctor. A man had been treating patients and prescribing drugs in an NHS hospital with no qualifications whatsoever. I presume he must have had some sort of medical knowledge. People would surely begin to notice if you were bluffing your way through open-heart surgery.

‘Er, right, let's remove this big gristly lump here.'

‘But that's the heart, doctor.'

‘The heart? Blimey, it doesn't look like that on the Valentine's cards, does it?'

Over the years I had read about various bogus professionals, phoney aristocrats, refugees claiming to be Russian princesses, criminals impersonating police officers. It occurred to me that I had become the show business equivalent – I was a bogus celebrity. My fame was forged, I had risen without trace, I was a nobody-somebody, a plastic VIP. But the thing about fame is that either you are well known or you are not, and before long that's all that counts. ‘Are you famous, then?' is a question that answers itself. You wouldn't say to Madonna, ‘Are you famous?' If you have to ask, the answer's ‘no'. Unless you were my dad, of course. Then you'd definitely ask Madonna if she was famous, before boring her for an hour about how much rubbish there was in the hit parade these days.

The invitation to the award ceremony said ‘Black Tie', which is a sort of euphemistic shorthand because there isn't enough room on the invite to put ‘Dress Code: Look Like a
Twat'. Since I'd never played the part of Mr Hudson in
Upstairs Downstairs
, I didn't own a black bow tie or a pair of trousers with that shiny stripe down the leg, so I had to hire a complete outfit from a shop in Brighton where a rather camp man asked me if I would like a cummerbund. ‘Hmm, a cummerbund,' I pondered out loud, hoping he might help me out, ‘do I want a cummerbund?' while thinking: Is it a) a type of fruity bread; b) an item of clothing; or c) a bizarre gay sex act? Since at the time he was kneeling down in front of me with a load of pins in his mouth, I thought I'd better say no, just to be on the safe side.

Unfortunately the clown's trousers I had hurriedly said were fine turned out not to have any slots for a belt and since I didn't own a pair of braces I ended up shuffling into the Grosvenor House Hotel with my jacket obscuring a row of safety pins where my trousers were hooked to my shirt to prevent them from falling down. I handed my invitation to one of the girls with the lists of names and when I said ‘Jimmy Conway' she remarked, ‘Oh, you're a nominee, aren't you?' and the other guests who were arriving all looked in my direction.

‘Er, yeah. Best New Stand-up . . .'

‘Good luck!' and she gave me a smile. A large man with his own frilly shirt said, ‘Hi, Jimmy, Matt Margerison, Total TV. I'm producing a comedy-clips show for Sky One called “When Plastic Surgery Goes Bad” – I'd love to have lunch with you some time,' and he gave me a card.

‘Oh, thank you very much, um, well, I'm busy on Wednesday and I'm going to see my parents on Monday although I could move them to Tuesday . . .'

‘Gimme a call,' he shouted back as he headed off into the throng, already catching someone else's eye.

I walked into the bar and a man presented me with a tray that offered a choice of champagne or orange juice. This time I was not going to do anything as embarrassing as ask how much the drinks were. In fact, I thought I'd forgo the champagne and request a glass of beer from the curiously deserted bar. I got myself a lager and turned to survey the setting when I heard the barman calling me back. ‘Oi – that's three fifteen.' I'd never understand how this all worked. The really expensive drink was free, but if you wanted an everyday beverage you had to pay wildly over the odds. The extra fifteen pence was a touch of genius. They must have thought, Look, if we whack the price up to three quid it'll be obvious we're taking the piss, so let's call it three fifteen and everyone will think it's been carefully costed.

I stood alone and sipped my drink, wishing that Nancy or another of my friends could be here to share it with me. Nancy would have loved all this glamour. No, on second thoughts, she would have hated it. She would have felt self-conscious and enormous just because she was a normal size fourteen and did not have the figure of a nine-year-old child. Actually Nancy described herself as a ‘fourteen-stroke-twelve', the latter figure added on as a permanent aspiration. I had entered this hotel by walking on a red carpet. Nancy would have said, ‘We can't walk on that. Come to the side.' At the end of the meal she would have stacked up the dirty dinner plates to make it easier for the waiter. It would have been as much as I could do to stop her offering to help with the washing-up.

‘Hello, stranger,' said a woman's voice behind me, and I turned to see Stella looking stunning in a tiny dress made by sewing some sequins onto a handkerchief

‘Oh my goodness! Hello there!' I said, and for the first time
I gave her a kiss on the cheek, which went slightly wrong as she went to give me a second kiss on the other side and I realized this too late, leaving her craning her neck towards my retreating head.

‘You never said you'd be here tonight,' I stammered.

‘Last-minute decision,' she whispered. ‘But I told them to put me next to you on the table plan. Come on,' and she took my hand and led me through to the dining room. Everyone stopped their conversations and stared at us open-mouthed. Who is that with Stella Scrivens? everyone seemed to be thinking. I followed her, offering a polite smile to the staring guests as the men tried not to let their suppressed envy cause them to snap their champagne glasses in two. She must be interested in me, I thought. To suddenly come along and get herself seated next to me, it's because I'm really starting to make it, that's what happens . . .

The dining hall felt roughly the size of Shea Stadium, and was packed with large white circular tables brimming with flowers and bottles of wine and glistening cutlery. They had invited about a thousand people for dinner, which was probably just as well. I mean, with a dining room this size you wouldn't want to invite a couple of friends round for a bowl of pasta; it wouldn't feel right. On every seat was a fancy carrier bag stuffed with presents: a T-shirt promoting a new cable channel, a soon-to-be-released comedy video, a box of cigars, aftershave and perfume, a disposable camera – all sorts of treats and surprises that were handed out free to everyone attending. As I arrived at my designated place, all the privileged overpaid people of the show business industry were greedily rifling through their goody bags like spoilt children on Christmas morning. The champagne was free, the food was free and obviously you'd expect a grown-up party bag as well
to take home in your courtesy car. As far as I could work out, the richer you got, the less you had to pay for; they had taken ‘to each according to their need' and turned it on its head.

As I toyed with my cold starter I attempted a conversation with the man on my other side, a slightly drunk Scouser who had an uncomplicated analysis of the evening's proceedings, though it was one he expressed quite emphatically. ‘These awards are a load of bollocks. It's all bollocks, all of it. These people: bollocks; this whole industry: complete bollocks; these prizes: meaningless bollocks; all these free gifts: marketing bollocks; this food: pure bollocks.'

At which point I think I pushed away the small plate of half-eaten pâté and popped a bit of gristle out from my mouth into a paper napkin. It seemed perverse that the people who were at the ceremony had less interest in the event than the people who'd be watching at home. We looked at the list of nominations and Stella seemed to know a fair bit about it all.

‘Who's getting the Lifetime Achievement Award?' I asked.

‘Benny “Bonk-bonk” Bullivant.'

‘For lifetime achievement?' said the man on her other side. ‘But he's only mid-forties.'

‘Yeah, but he's got AIDS; didn't you know?'

‘Oh, fair enough, then.' He shrugged. It turns out that the Lifetime Achievement Award is the last rites of the showbiz industry.

The second course was a chicken leg with new potatoes. Everyone got a leg. There was no breast. That's a thousand chicken legs but no white meat, the sort of order that would really annoy my butcher in Seaford. I ate mine slightly too quickly and noticed that, just as with her starter, Stella didn't even pick up her knife and fork. She didn't even pretend to push stuff around the plate for a while. Some people didn't eat
wheat; some didn't eat dairy products. Stella didn't eat food. I sat there longingly eyeing her untouched roast chicken, but I guessed it wasn't correct form here to help yourself to someone else's leftovers.

Stella had a lot of people to whom she wanted to go and say hello and I watched her confidently flit from table to table. Everyone watched her cross the room. They all knew who she was and I felt proud that she'd been sitting with me. Finally she plonked herself in an empty seat beside an old friend, while the chair's original occupant returned and patiently waited for her to finish. I sat at my table, now feeling a little self-conscious and increasingly nervous as the awards ceremony proper was about to begin. I decided to slip away to the toilet just to get a break from it all. But they had even contrived to make the act of relieving oneself into a luxurious five-star experience. Standing to attention by the washbasins was a short old man in a ridiculous maroon bell-boy outfit designed to be as demeaning to him as possible. He was employed to hand everyone a little towel as they finished washing their hands. Thank God for that – otherwise they might have had to pick up the towelette from the pile themselves and then where would they have been? The towels were passed from the pile with a pair of gleaming tongs, just in case the old man didn't already feel completely worthless. ‘Right, Stanley, on Saturday night, there's a big awards ceremony at the Grosvenor House Hotel in Park Lane. A five-course meal, free champagne, funny speeches, the lot. And you're going to be there . . .'

‘In the banqueting suite?'

‘No – your job is to stand in the bog all night passing hand towels to everyone. Oh, and use these disinfected tongs because we don't want any of the guests cringing at the
thought of catching your filthy germs, you disgusting little leper.'

I pushed open the toilet door and was relieved to see there was no one employed to squeeze into the cubicle with you to tear off little pieces of toilet paper and pass them across with tweezers when required. I locked the door and sat down. I didn't need to go to the toilet. I kept my trousers done up and sat down on the toilet lid for a break. I just needed somewhere to hide for a few minutes, somewhere to get a rest from pretending to be relaxed. What was I doing here? It was ridiculous. I must be insane to have let it come this far. It was all going to come out this evening. The compère was going to announce the shortlist and then reveal that they had tried to find anyone who'd seen Jimmy Conway, and discovered that he'd never been on a stage in his life. At which point I would try to bolt for the door only to be grabbed by two ex-SAS bouncers who'd march me to a cashpoint machine and make me pay hundreds of pounds for my three glasses of champagne and chicken leg with new potatoes and cherry tomato.

I tried to calm myself down. It was all right; this evening was just a bit of an adventure. My old showbiz chum Mike Mellor would win best new stand-up. I would applaud and try not to look disappointed or jealous and that would be that. I would drop this ridiculous charade and disappear out of sight after my hour in the sun. I should just enjoy tonight like a society fairground ride.

I heard the door swing open and voices braying and echoing off the tiled walls.

‘So whose table are you on?'

‘Oh, Penny Webster; directed
What Are You Laughing At?.
You know, the comedy-clips panel show on E4. It's up for Best Comedy Quiz.'

‘Oh yeah, I taped that but I haven't watched it yet. I'm here with Mike Mellor – he's up for best new stand-up.'